


John Watson's Blog

by feverishsea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, gen or slash depending on your pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-30
Updated: 2012-03-30
Packaged: 2017-11-02 17:50:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/371712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverishsea/pseuds/feverishsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The John Watson on his blog definitely wouldn't like the real Sherlock very much. The real John Watson isn’t sure he necessarily likes this Sherlock either, but he’s never bored.</p>
            </blockquote>





	John Watson's Blog

Sometimes John wishes that he was the John Watson that lives in his blog entries.

 

That John Watson seems like a nice bloke. Good, even. He’s not exactly handsome, but he has an okay smile and he probably really cares about his patients at the clinic. He’s got this eccentric but brilliant flatmate, and the two of them run about London solving crimes together, sniping good-naturedly at one another and trying their best to rid the world of the bad guys.

 

The real John Watson is a bit of a different story. As is the real Sherlock Holmes.

 

In real life, the kind where he uses the toilet, waits twenty minutes for the bus, and his eyes often get dry for no discernable reason, John isn’t particularly nice or particularly good. Well, for given definitions of the words. He’s nice in that he comforts victims of crime as best he can because they’re there in front of him crying or possibly bleeding, and good in that he’s a doctor, which probably counts for something, though most of the healing he does is of the “Take two of these and call the secretary’s line in the morning” sort.

 

Unfortunately, there’s some implications about intent behind both “nice” and “good”, and John is pretty sure that’s where he falls short. Nice can go right out; he yells far too much, gets annoyed far too easily, and snaps at his flatmate purely because Sherlock lets him get away with it. Good is probably a lost cause too; he was a soldier, sure, but mainly because it gave him something to _do_.

 

John gets teased from time to time about being all for Queen and country, but it’s usually by Sherlock, and Sherlock says it with a gleam in his eye because he knows it isn’t true.

 

He attracts an entirely different sort of girl than the John Watson from his blog would – rather than sweet, slightly superior girls who are drawn to the promise of a kind man who will look at them in awe, John attracts sweet girls with only vague understandings of themselves, who don’t understand why he makes them slightly nervous. Ones who want to save him. (It never works, so they always leave. The John Watson on his blog would be very unhappy about this. John mostly misses the sex. He’d like to have a meaningful relationship, really he would, but he’s never been very good at those. Except for with lunatic geniuses, apparently.)

 

As for the real Sherlock Holmes… well, Sherlock doesn’t do what he does to help people. He honestly doesn’t give a toss who dies, how old they were, or what gender. He doesn’t want to add to the numbers; he just states those numbers without flinching. He views the world from a completely objective stance where everybody is going to die sometime, and all murders are going to/have already been committed, so there’s no use crying about it.

 

It’s not a very human point of view. But it’s not a psycopath’s point of view, either. And John accepts it more every day. (The John Watson on his blog would not.)

 

Sherlock might care about John, occasionally seems to, but then again he often throws John directly into harm’s way because it’s convenient, and his brief flashes of humanity are never particularly long-lived.

 

It’s hard to be sure, but the Sherlock on his blog seems more the sort who does care, underneath a cold exterior. There’s something good and pure in him, hidden deep down. He might even have been abused as a child or something.

 

The real Sherlock is definitely not traumatized; not even really damaged either, depending on how you define damage. He’s got a screw loose by normal standards, sure, but he was born that way and he functions perfectly fine. Nobody tormented or beat him into what he is. He torments plenty of other people, though, purely because he can.

 

The John Watson on his blog definitely would not like this Sherlock very much. The real John Watson isn’t sure he necessarily likes this Sherlock either, but he’s never bored.

 

The funny thing is, Sherlock could be the Sherlock from John’s blog, if he wanted to be. Or be better, even. John knows that Sherlock finds perfection boring because he _could_ be perfect, if he wanted to. The same ironclad self control that allows Sherlock to go days without sleep or food would serve him just as well if he wanted to give up alcohol, drugs, or sharp retorts. But perfection is static, and Sherlock chafes against anything that stays the same.

 

Sometimes John thinks that Sherlock is the reincarnation of Eve, the woman who lived a perfect life in a perfect place. She was entirely happy; she knew that the only way things could change would to be to get worse.

 

But she took the apple anyway, because it was something new.

 

John isn’t perfect; couldn’t be if he tried. He’s bruised and damaged and possibly just plain broken. He has a temper, very little patience, and an addictive personality that he usually manages to keep somewhat under control. He also has an unyielding need to be needed, and a stringent enough definition of “need” to make it unhealthy.

 

He used to want to fix these things. Used to want to be someone different, someone better. Wanted it so much that he started a blog and wrote himself a better story.

 

The John Watson on his blog is a better man than him. He would listen long-sufferingly to Sherlock’s endless tirades, and maybe offer him a nice cup of tea at the end. He wouldn’t jab insults at Sherlock just because he’s had a long day at the clinic (or really, just because he happens to be feeling like a bastard at the moment). He might gamble, but if he did it would be a momentary lapse in the midst of a group of friends, and he’d manage to walk away with more than he’d started with, and learn something from it.

 

In spite of this, John suspects that Sherlock wouldn’t like the John Watson in his blog very much.

 

John snaps at Sherlock and Sherlock ignores him, or occasionally smirks. John storms out of the flat and Sherlock is there waiting when he gets back. John looks at online poker sites and Sherlock confiscates his laptop for a week.

 

It makes him want to freeze in place, to stay exactly the same, preserve every crack and flaw and maybe carve them a little deeper, to keep Sherlock interested in him.

 

Sherlock hates things that don’t change, so it’s a contradiction of sorts.

 

But then again, so is love.

 

Sometimes John wants to be the John Watson in his blog. Wants to be simple and kind and good.

 

But then again, the John Watson in his blog would never have _this_.


End file.
